


Pain

by sariloire



Series: Ashae Lavellan [33]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Post-Trespasser, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 16:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5593876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariloire/pseuds/sariloire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas knows he'll be stopped one day. But his path is not one he can turn from so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain

The pain hit him in the chest, just as hard as the time he had mistakenly used a lightning spell while standing in water in the Fallow Mire. Solas gasped and tried to step back, his leg buckling beneath him as he fell to his knees on the rain-soaked ground. One hand clutched his staff, trying to pull himself back up, and the other grasped his chest, pulling at the armor there that was slowly turning white.

His hands grasped at it, his fingers fumbling and turning stiff from the cold. The white was still spreading, frost making its way from the place that the spell had hit, twisting and curling up the armor as he struggled to pull it off.

Another spell hit him, throwing him backwards off of his knees as he noticed it far too late to put a barrier up in time. Solas hit the ground, his breath gone as lights popped in his eyes from the force of his head hitting the ground when he was flung backwards.

When he could see again, it was just in time to see Ashae kneel on his chest, her hand weaving an ice spell through the falling rain, her maimed arm keeping her staff tight against her side. Her eyes were hard, there were no tears in them, no love, no emotion of any kind.

Except anger and possibly, he suspected, hatred.

There was the woman he loved, who had finally caught up with him.

Solas didn’t struggle, the rain pouring down was helping to freeze his armour to the soaked ground beneath him, Ashae’s spells drawing more power from the weather. He didn’t look away from her eyes, he wasn’t going to argue or judge her for what she was doing. It was her duty to stop him.

“You made me do this.” She finally spoke, her voice breaking as her hand pushed on his chest, making sure he was staying down.

“I know, vhenan.” His response was quiet as he searched her face, still not struggling against her. He couldn’t tell whether she was now crying or if it was just the rain pouring down her face, but her eyes never left his.

“I can’t let you hurt them.” Her hand on his chest gripped his freezing clothes, he could feel her shaking. “No one in this world deserves what you’re trying to do to them. No one.”

“I know.” He repeated his voice little more than a whisper. Those were tears on her face, he could tell now as they dripped down onto his own cheek. He reached a hand up and traced a thumb along her eyes. She didn’t flinch, didn’t push his hand away, and it pained his heart even more to see how much she trusted him still, even after all he had done.

Ashae closed her eyes to his touch, shaking her head slightly. “Please just stop. I can help you find another way, Solas. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

Solas studied her face, trying to memorize every new scar, every new line that hadn’t been there the last time he had seen her. He wanted to remember it all, remember every detail of his _vhenan_.

“This is the only path I know.” His words were simple, but the finality they carried behind them caused him to shudder as he pulled his hand from her face. At the absence of his touch, she opened her eyes, staring down at him. They stayed that way for minutes that seemed to stretch into hours, until she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

Solas reached up, pulling her closer, parting her lips with his tongue as his hands pushed back the soaked hair clinging to her forehead. Their shared breaths steamed between them as Ashae pulled her mouth from his, the words tumbling from her mouth broken with the effort of trying to hold back a sob.

“Ir abelas, ma sa’lath.”

Solas felt her hand, still over his heart, push against him. The ice spell pierced him, shooting cold daggers through his body as everything went black.

* * *

 

Solas awoke with a jerk, his breathing fast and laboured as he looked around his chambers. After taking a few moments to orient himself, he lay back down, his hands moving to wipe the tears that were tracking down his face.

It was a dream he had had many times since removing Ashae’s anchor and leaving her on the other side of the eluvian. It always came in different forms, and her method of killing him was always varied.

But in the end, she always took his life.

And although he knew some dreams were only dreams, and that it was not wise to believe them all, as he lay on his bed and try to forget the anguish he had seen on her face when she had made the killing blow, he believed with all of his heart that this was one that was going to come to pass one day.

His vhenan would take his life to stop him. Her dedication and bravery had been two of the many things that had made him love her all the more at the beginning, and those two traits wouldn’t allow her to sit by and let him destroy the world without trying to stop him.

He knew she would try to save him first, but he would not back down.

There was no other way.

For he walked the Din’Anshiral.


End file.
